FB: You just announced the Biometrics Research Competition with the University of Kent in the United Kingdom, can you please tell us about the goals of this competition?
SAIC: The goal, really, is to foster and engage with students in the UK; it’s not just limited to the University of Kent. We want to find new ideas on the applications of and solutions involving biometrics. Our goal is not just to find the next smaller, faster, cheaper, more ruggedized sensor and/or hand-held; or to find the next new biometric modality. We are trying to focus on, “What are the implications? What are the social, cultural, and economical impacts of biometric systems? What is the R.O.I, and how do you prove it?”
One of the big roadblocks to mass biometric adoption, at least from the government side, is the element of “big brother” and privacy rights. So, what are some of the new ways to engage with the public to be able to implement biometric systems.
FB: What is the background of this competition? Is this its first year, or have there been other competitions held in the past?
SAIC: This is the first one in which SAIC and the University of Kent have been working together in this manner.
FB: What does SAIC hope to gain from participating in this competition? What types of game-changing concepts would you really like to see come out of this?
SAIC: “Game-changing concepts”—to be honest, I am not sure we’re really going to get a game-changing concept, per se. The real spark here, and this goes back to what I just mentioned—is engaging directly with the students and possibly finding something that the industry itself hasn’t thought of previously, or even something various governments haven’t thought of beforehand. In all honesty, I don’t know what the results will be, and what we’re going to find; this is what makes it so exciting for me, and I’m truly looking forward to the end results to see what does turn up.
I think that one thing that we can say from a UK perspective is that each of the sort of, silos—academia, industry and government— have pretty much been operating just like that. Academia came up with a solution, industry tried to grasp it and set it into government. There has been no continuity but rather there has been sort of a culture of adoption, if you like.
And so, if anything, this is the first time where academia, industry and government are, basically, at the ground level, and they will be able to share ideas from their own perspectives all within the same forum.
So, I think it is quite interesting from that perspective because these kinds of activities have always been just in industry, or just in academia, or just the public sector. With this competition, everyone is coming together to look at the future uses of this technology.
FB: When you provide instructions to the students, are they required, or asked to come up with concepts around more of a commercial application, or is it geared toward dealing with privacy issues. Are there any restrictions that are placed upon the students?
SAIC: No, not at all; there have been no restrictions whatsoever. The subject, as far as headings, is “Innovations in Biometrics”. Typically, we basically want people to think “outside-of-the-box” as much as possible. Therefore, the thought of restricting the scope of their work, I don’t believe, would have been conducive to what we want to achieve here.
I’d like to add that the kinds of things that we’ve asked the students to think about, in terms of the instructions is, how will this impact the industry? Followed by the second portion, which is, what are ways in which it would transition out of the academic or research world into the “real” world? So really, we are asking for practical innovations, I guess would be the way to word it. Or, at least a roadmap of how it will impact the industry and then, how will it get into the real world?
FB: The part that I truly like about what you’re doing here is, and this is in light of our recent Year-in-Review, which we do yearly, and where we speak with numerous global biometric companies—this past year we interviewed close to 70 participants—that what came across, loud and clear, is that overall education in biometrics was a critical factor in the how successful biometrics will become. I believe, therefore, that what you’re doing will truly increase awareness, getting many different people thinking about where to take biometrics next.
SAIC: Indeed, and we agree, which is why we are a sponsor in this UK challenge, but it is also why we participate in organizations like CITeR—out of West Virginia University, which is looking at identity in a very broad spectrum. I don’t know if you’re familiar with CITeR, but it is a very similar construct; engaging with academia, and educating through publishing of the results.
We think that engaging academia is not only a way to, potentially, educate the larger population, but also to foster those folks that are coming out of university, who fundamentally understand biometrics—as far as application, what it can, or can’t do—and thereby, increasing the pool of folks who are that much more knowledgeable and able to deliver robust solutions.
FB: I understand that the winning student will be flown to the Biometric Consortium Conference, in Tampa, Fla., in September and then will have an opportunity to present to the SAIC group at the company’s headquarters in Virginia. That’s quite the incentive for the students. How many participants are you expecting?
SAIC: We’re looking, on the day of the workshop, to have on the order of 13 to 15 students actively presenting their demonstrations. We’ll be doing a down-select to arrive at the number and from there, to finalize on the eventual winner. So, that’s the range—approximately 13-15 folks active on the day of the actual workshop.
FB: I congratulate you on this initiative. I think it’s a really wonderful situation to involve your company, SAIC, and the University of Kent, and other universities in the UK. I wish you the very best of success and I am also looking forward to having a follow up conversation when the winner has been chosen to discover what the winning result was.
SAIC: Thank you; and if I may, I’d like to interject just one more comment. I believe that you mentioned how the prize was rather unique and that was something that we think distinguishes this event. We had considered the idea of a cash award, but we thought it would be more of a win-win to have something along the lines of what we’ve come up with, where the students could actually discuss their ideas with the broader industry in a very large forum, along with being able to acquire the industry experience by discussing their ideas with management and getting feedback on how their ideas might transition.
FB: A wonderful concept indeed; I hope that other companies will follow your lead and also begin to engage academia in that manner as well. I believe that this would be very good for the industry, overall. And, as you just said, it’s a win-win for the universities, the participating students and your organization.
About SAIC
Founded by J. Robert Beyster, Ph.D., and a small group of scientists in 1969, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a FORTUNE 500® company, and its subsidiaries now have approximately 45,000 employees worldwide.
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